Sales resumed this week after what seemed a long 3 week recess!! Talk of a 50,000+ bale catalogue rang true as the wet weather at the end of June hampered receivals for Sale 1 and 2 pushing wool back to this week’s sale - this being the case not only for us but most brokers up and down the Eastern seaboard. The national offering of 52,000 bales (31,000 - 60% fleece wool) was the biggest since January and the largest post-recess opening sale in 5 years - this being enough to see the exporters approach the sale with caution. Sydney opened its sale with most fleece types in sellers’ favour as Melbourne and Fremantle opened on a cheaper note. This falling trend filtered through to Sydney on the 2nd day as all 3 centres lost more ground. By week’s end 17.5 and finer only lost up to 5 cents with 18 to 22s giving up 10 cents as broader types lost 15 cents. The better style types with good specs held their ground and, in some cases, were up to 25 cents better than their indicators as the part tender, burry types lost up to 30 cents to see similar wool depending on good or bad specs up to a 100 cent price gap.

Skirtings followed a similar pattern to the fleece room as the better spec lots went okay with the burrier/short types losing ground. Lots <5% VM held their ground as anything with more VM fell by 25 to 30 cents. Crossbreds had a mixed sale moving in all directions. Finer microns <25 were 15 cents down, 26 and 30 micron and broader lifted by up to 20 cents while 28s lost 20 cents. Cardings were the worst hit sector as big losses on the opening day were followed by a firming market on Thursday. Each regional MCI lost between 30 to 45 cents with locks giving up 60 cents, stains back by 40 cents and inferior CRT losing 20 cents.

The 14 cent fall in the EMI saw the market slip below 1300 cents to 1297 but, in US$ terms, the shift was the barest minimum of 1 cent, up to 1000, this due to the rise in the exchange rate (now over 77 cents) which at one stage during the recess was just above 74 cents. Buyers were left somewhat confused by the large offering - the biggest factor for the downward pressure - yet a drop in testing figures for July of 10% less when compared to July 12 months ago. Not that hard to work out, prolonged wet weather in June has delayed shearing and wool receivals by 2/3 weeks making Sale 1 and 2 smaller than the previous year by 10 % thus pushing late wool into this week’s sale. Had everything run to schedule, this sale would have been around 45,000 bales and testing figures would have been 15 to 20% less in July than 12 months ago. The power of a major Chinese indent buyer was evident this week as he purchased 20% of the fleece on offer nationally. This buying intensity went till the very last lot in Thursday as the fleece market firmed up. The price gap between microns is close to an all time low as some lower spec types finer than 17 micron are struggling to match prices of good 20 to 22 micron wools. In fact the gap from 21 down to 17 micron is just 110 cents, making medium wool sheep returns/head miles in front of their fine-wool cousins!! Next sale will see a national catalogue of 42,000 bales. We sell first up on Wednesday to a firm/unchanged market we hope.